Here’s our regular mashup of the week’s social media news, with the added bonus of a picture of some eggs. We hope you had a great Easter…

A fifth of European 9-12 year olds on Facebook
Despite being a ’13 and over’ site, a fifth of European children from 9-12 years old are now using Facebook, with a staggering 79% of children aged 13-16 now using Facebook on a regular basis. The research that produced these figures, conducted by the London School of Economics, also highlighted a worrying lack of understanding regarding Facebook’s privacy settings, with almost half of younger users and a quarter of older users saying they didn’t know how to change their accounts’ privacy settings.

Facebook adds ‘send’ button
A year or so ago, Facebook introduced the ‘Like’ button, a social plugin that allows users to instantly share content with all of their Facebook friends. Now Facebook are following up on that initial offering with the ‘send’ button, ‘because sometimes it’s private’. The premise is the same, except now a target, be it an individual or a group, can be selected. Users can also choose to deliver the message as an email, a wall post or a direct message.

The future of Foursquare
Dennis Crowley, co-founder and CEO of Foursquare, gave an audience in San Fransisco a taste of the future of Foursquare last week. Describing Foursquare’s current check-in process as “clunky and heavy”, he said he envisioned a ‘hybrid check-in’ model that would recognize when you’re in a place you’ve previously visited and ask you if you’d like to check in there. Crowley also described a recommendation system that could, for example, buzz in your pocket and tell you if you’re near a sandwich shop that you read about online or tell you when a friend is nearby.

Royal Wedding to be Livestreamed on YouTube
You might not have heard, but apparently there’s a royal wedding coming up. Well, in an effort to ensure that people around the world are able to share in the royal wedding spirit, the event is due to be livestreamed on YouTube. For more information, or to upload your own messages of ‘congratulations, inspiration or well wishes to the happy couple’ head on over to the official Royal Channel.

Republic launches 20% off Facebook deal
With a healthy 43,000 Facebook fans to their name, UK fashion retailer Republic has launched on Facebook deals. When a Facebook user checks-in to a Republic shop, they can now cash in on a 20% in-store discount.

Chanel’s F-commerce pop-up shop
Chanel earned themselves some F-commerce ‘cred’ recently with the unveiling of their slick pre-launch pop-up lipstick store on Facebook. The new Coco Rouge Shine range was made available early to Facebook fans, with the Facebook store appearing not only as an app on Chanel’s page but also a ‘wall-store’ in fans’ news-feeds, allowing purchase without necessarily visiting the Chanel page.

Renault show off Facebook ‘share pillars’ at the Amsterdam motorshow

In a bid to bridge the gap between offline and online activity and encourage users to share their approval of Renault with the minimum effort, Renault pioneered ‘Facebook pillars’ at the Amsterdam Motorshow. Basically, attendees were encouraged to collect a free Renault RFID micro chip embedded card, which could then be linked to their Facebook account and swiped at the pillars, instantly generating a Facebook like. An innovative example of offline activity resulting in automated online action.

Nike launch ‘Zuperfly’ campaign

Making the most of Ibrahimovich’s 1,000,000 Facebook fans, Nike have launched Zlatan Zuperfly, a campaign that gives users a first person experience of how it feels to be a world class footballer. Users take control, choosing whether to dribble, pass or shoot, and are then given the option to share the resulting footage generated by the game with their Facebook friends.

Eastpak launch ‘Human Tetris’

Going one step further, Eastpak have launched ‘Spak’, a Facebook game that takes the concept of human tetris and extends it to your network of Facebook friends, allowing you to arrange play two player games. We’d like it better if the faces of your friends were superimposed over the faces of the human tetris blocks.

“The Awesomest Panda Parade Ever”

And in a similar, but perhaps less distressing vien, in anticipation of the launch of Kung Fu Panda 2, Dreamworks have launched a campaign using Facebook Connect to create a Panda Parade that features all of your Facebook friends. Pictures of the parade can then be shared with your aforementioned Facebook friends….

Puma launches three new Foursquare badgesPuma are trying to encourage Foursquare users to check in to their Puma Social Clubs found in major cities, including New York, London, Paris and Stockholm – with the release of two new badges awarded to Foursquare users that repeatedly check-in at their Social Club venues. A third badge – a little more up my street, to be honest – rewards users that check in to three restuarants after 2am.

Volkswagen’s ‘Linkedout’ – Inventive marketing on Linkedin
I’ve always wondered how long it would be until brands up their game and attempt really inventive marketing campaigns on Linkedin. Obviously Linkedin’s ads are available to marketers, but there is still plenty of fresh ground to be covered interms of creative marketing efforts. Well, Volkswagen have stepped up to the plate.

Basically, ‘Linkedout’ encourages users to pick friends to ‘battle’, the game will then compare the two ‘players’ based on their LinkedIn profile – ie. number of connections, recommendations and experience – and pick a victor (à la Top Trumps).

Darron Gibson receives frosty Twitter welcome
Well, maybe ‘frosty’ is a bit of an understatement. In less than two hours, having been welcomed to the site by his Manchester United teammate Rio Ferdinand who encouraged his 842,000 followers to follow Gibson, Gibson cancelled his account amid a torrent of abuse from his own fans. A #getgibboback campaign has since been launched, but something tells me that he poor ol’ ‘Gibbo’ won’t be back to Twitter any time soon.